Posted on 11/09/2005 2:26:03 PM PST by sam_paine
Gary Chapman, REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR
'Why aren't you in Iraq?" That's the question I posed recently to a group of undergraduates at the University of Texas, an honors class studying the legal aspects of the war on terrorism.
I tried to ask this without antagonism or implicit criticism, but the question appeared to unsettle the students anyway. None of them had given military service much thought. All of them were against the war in Iraq. They told me they support the troops, but not the war itself. They won't sign up to fight a war they consider illegal and a mistake.
....
Either we're all in this together, or we should get the hell out. We can't have it both ways.
Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the LBJ School. He can be reached at gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.
(Excerpt) Read more at statesman.com ...
I don't see how it is contradictory for me to support the military, but disagree politically with the Iraq war (since I favor a more restrained, isolationist foreign policy--for reasons that don't need to be debated on this thread). In this case, I'm not even advocating an immediate pullout or timetable (considering that we are already there, those decisions are better left to people with expertise), just a somewhat different foreign policy.
"now"
It's always been that way. The elites (democrats) think the people who volunteer for the military do so because they're too stupid to do anything else.
I wonder if the people rescued after Katrina thought the people flying the helicopters were stupid ..??
"The soldiers are bigger heroes than any athlete, movie star, musician, journalist or politician".
Thank you for posting this. When I watch FoxNews and I see some scummy politician blowing out his pie hole some crap, I'm disgusted. When FoxNews shows some of our military in Iraq I pay close attention because what they are doing simply amazes me. And I love when someone on FreeRepublic shows our soldiers with Iraqi children. Our American military are the best of America! May God Bless them and keep them safe always.
Our military are heroes.
Gary Chapman is my new definition of loser.
Yep. Same statistics showed up after the Viet Nam war where middle class and upper middle-class whites were over represented and blacks and the poor were under-represented in the war in spite of what the rat newspapers and Dan Rather told us. Bill Burketts book "Stolen Valor" gives a good summary of the statistics.
"This is lib-speak for 'I'm a cowardly, spineless jellyfish of a lib who wants to bask in all the freedoms that come under the umbrella of protection provided by the US military without actually having to risk my pathetic girly-man hide to ensure their survival.'"
Very well said! As a vet, I can say without reservation that you nailed it. :)
My favorite was "The role of the military is to PROTECT Democracy, not PRACTICE it!"
Would that apply to a friend of mine (one of the top students at my college), who disagrees with the Iraq war, and yet chose to leave school (no doubt making a considerable sacrifice) and join the Navy, believing that the country could use the service of both liberals and conservatives? I suspect she would disagree with you assertion that supporting the military requires ideological agreement with every action of theirs.
Imagine that your spouse/significant other came home one night, gave you a kiss, and said, "Honey, I love you and support you. I think that everything that you're doing right now is wrong and immoral, but I wanted you to know that I support you."
Notice I didn't call their actions immoral; I said I disagreed with the policy.
Further, take a hypothetical situation (it's not an analogy to the present situation; it's simply designed to illustrate my point) in which President Hillary Clinton sends the military on an ill-conceived and ill-fated intervention mission in Africa--one that is not particularly in the national interest, but maybe in the "international interest." Say this mission is highly costly in both military lives and money. Would it be possible to support the military and oppose the mission? Would it be possible to believe the mission was a mistake, or is even this unacceptable once we have engaged in it?
I apologize for being rude.
A soldier (I'm including all branches)has a mission. They are dedicated to completing THAT mission. The mission may change- but the dedication to the mission must not change. A soldier takes an OATH to that effect.
The very LEAST I can do for the men and women who choose to take that oath- is offer my full and unconditional support THAT THEY COMPLETE THEIR MISSION.
So. When people say they support the troops but not the war, I say BS. Would you prefer they LOSE?
It becomes sticky, you see. If you don't support their mission- which is to raise holy hell with the terrorists (they are NOT insurgents) in Iraq- then you are actually wanting them to lose.
No, no, no.
As someone who volunteered, I don't want to serve with people who don't want to be there. There are plenty of bad attitudes in the military from people who freely signed their name on the dotted line. Imagine dealing with the "Screw you Sergeant! I didn't ask to be here!" The only way to deal with these malcontents would be corporally and that would be A.) detrimental to morale and unit cohesion and B.) horribly controversial, generating enormous bad press about the military.
There are much better ways to increase enlistment and retention (pay raise, hint, hint!) than drafting people who don't want to be there and will do everything they can to get kicked out.
That being said, there are untold numbers of draftees who served in the US military with courage and honor.
Happily, many now think that journalism is for losers.
Be that as it may, the soldier in Iraq is not drawn from the lowest ranks of our society, as this educated fool contends. In fact, there seems to be a disposition among academics to think this of soldiers in every war. It reminds me of the stereotype of the athlete. of the dumb jock. People who do what they will not do, what they CANNOT do, must somehow be made to seem mentally inferior to them. I think of the sometime characterization of the British soldier in our Revolutionary War, who is depicted as men pressed into service from the slums of London. In fact most were men from the country--and volunteers. The same was true of the German mercenaries. Many from the ranks liked America so much they decided to settle her after the war. And they fit right in, more so than--Ironically, American Tories.
All is forgiven; it is a touchy subject because so many do claim to support the troops but clearly do not in any way whatsoever.
Certainly, my support for the troops includes a desire that they get the best possible equipment and the best possible protection (I did campaign for Bush), and that they are as successful as possible against the terrorists while they are there. As I said before, I'm not even about to make judgments about how or when this particular war should be ended (since at this point that should be more based on the tactical judgments of people with military expereince rather than political ideology). It's just that I don't think one has to have supported the decision to go to war, or currently believe it was a good idea, to still wish for the best success for the troops now that they're there.
Did you type "pay raise"?
The military gets one every year, and twice every other year...
Maybe someday a Reagan-type 20%+ ('81-82?) one will come around again...
I wish I knew Pelosi, Reid, Dean, Kennedy and the rests personal email addresses. I would mail that to them post haste
Maybe someday a Reagan-type 20%+ ('81-82?) one will come around again...
That's what I'm talking about! The 1% here or 2% there is nice and all, but. . .
I was always uncomfortable at the lack of support of our military in Bosnia.
Our military's purpose is not to serve the "international interest." Its purpose is to protect this nation from enemies, foreign and domestic. There is no such thing as a common international interest, because that interest would have to include the interest of our enemies. Therefore, your hypothetical situation is irrelevant, and a rather poor attempt to distract me from the fact that you have no firm argument on which to stand.
You attempted a nice appeal to pity with the story about your friend, but I frankly don't care if she went into the military because she felt the military needed the service of liberals. The military doesn't need conervatives or liberals. It needs soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who put their country ahead of themselves. If she can put her job as a member of the military ahead of her inherently anti-American liberal prinicples, then I applaud her. If she entered with the belief that, in serving as a liberal, she could help transform the military into some liberal fantasy of what a military should be (i.e., traipsing around the world giving aid to the "downtrodden," et cetera), then she is just as poorly informed as you are.
I've little patience tonight for those who waste my time. Goodbye.
The Gallup organization noted that public trust in television news and newspapers reached an all-time low this year, with 28 percent of responders expressing high confidence in them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.